OCRA Membership Meeting, July 9, 2018

Meeting Attendance: 28

Treasurer:

  • Club balance is still strong. Current membership is 79, with 24 requiring renewal.  The club has added 17 new members this year.
  • Field Day – Thanks to all who assisted, supported, and participated in the Field Day food preparation and delivery. The pre-paid approach for Saturday’s evening meal and Sunday’s breakfast was very successful.  For Saturday’s meal there were 44 pre-paid with 6 people paying at meal time.  Likewise, for Sunday’s breakfast there were 36 pre-paid with 4 people paying at meal time. The success of meal pre-pay may become a new payment model for future field day meals.
  • Overall, the club profited $174 from meals, which will be added to our club coffers.

Field Day (FD) Recap:

Dave (W4SAR) provided a comparisons of 2017-2018 point totals.  For 2017 the total point was 19,760.  For 2018, we had an estimated total of 21,635.  Dave should have final 2018 totals in the next several weeks.  Congratulations to all for the great work securing the additional points…and the fun had by all.

This year, the Digi mode was a good success.  Dan (KR4UB) mentioned that Digital radio mode success in amateur radio has been partly attributed to the work of Joe Taylor (K1JT), who developed the WSJT-X software.  Joe is a noble prizing winning physicist, who has focused the past two decades on weak signal communication.  Joe is the developer behind several popular digital protocols like FT8 and JT65.

General FD Observations:

  • Less interference on 40 and 15 SSB than years past.
  • Accessible stations in garage worked well for all.
  • N1MM network may require piloting the software and associated computers a few weeks prior to FD. This may help reduce complexity, however, much of the issues are not the result of the application.  Rather, the issues are more likely attributed to the Microsoft OS and configuration of personal computers. Other clubs purchase refurbished PCs for FD from NewEgg to reduce configuration mismatch.

Band Captain Comments:

  • 40/15 SSB propagation and noise on the bands most of Saturday. By Sunday morning the bands opened with much less noise.
  • CW worked well…3 stations covered all night. Better scheduling provided coverage through the morning hours.  Power was more stable this year over lasts.
  • 20 SSB – had similar propagation and noise issues like other SSB stations. The station ran on solar power directly or from batteries recharged by solar throughout the entire FD.
  • 80 SSB did not have as many operators as years past. Was difficult getting confirmation due to static on the receiver.
  • Digital was well covered and enjoyed throughout the event. However, next year more comfortable seating will be needed.
  • VHF was challenging, but the 5 element Yagi provided a noticeable return on the points.

FD Logistics

  • For the larger antennas, a dedicated spotter on point for ensuring safety should be available, with agreed upon standard communication and terms. Additionally, a tower safety demonstration and additional guide wires for support may reduce operational risk.
  • Replace the wood antenna support “walk up” with metal. This will reduce the likelihood of the wood splitting and causing the tower to fall and potential hurt people.
  • The scheduling spreadsheet helped ensure adequate coverage of stations throughout the event.

Should we plan to add a Sunday lunch? Please reply to this post with your suggestions. We would enjoy reading your ideas!

 

OCRA/DFMA Groups.io Photo Upload Procedure

A new Photo section has been recently activated for all subscribers to OCRA-DFMA@groups.io.

If you haven’t tried it yet and have some good Field Day or other amateur radio event photos, here is a demonstration of the procedure.

If you are logged in to groups.io, this link  https://groups.io/g/OCRA-DFMA/photos will take you direct to the OCRA/DFMA groups.io photos gallery.

Or, from the groups.io home page click on the   tab to go to the photos home page. You will see several albums already on the site e.g. 2018 OCRA/DFMA Field Day, 2018 Field Day Potluck, and others.

You can create a new album by clicking on the blue New Album tab  or you can click on an existing album to add your photos.

A couple of thoughts about opening new albums:

  • The reason the “2018….. ” albums shown above are listed first is that the site lists albums in alphabetical order.
  • If you do choose to open another album the name ought to start off with consistent naming with the albums already in existence, otherwise the albums for the same event will be scatttered though out the whole library of photo albums.
  • Lastly, you might want to consider adding your photos to an already existing album to avoid viewers having to open many different albums to see all the photos related to a specific event. Each photo within an album will show and give credit to who uploaded the photo to the album.

To select an existing album, click on the photo 

To upload a photo(s) click on  and the Upload Photos window will open.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • While you may have used a photo image viewer or your operating system file manager to preview  and select the photos you wish to upload, before attempting to upload those photos in the steps below, you need to close those applications. Otherwise those photos can be locked by the open applications and not available to the upload process. There will be no pop up messages to indicate this has occurred. The symptom will be that when you click on the blue “Add” tab below, nothing happens.
  • Lastly if you select a large number of photos to upload, take into account your ISP upload speed. For most internet services, the upload speed is typically 1/10 of your download speed.  So if you select a large number of images, whose size can be considerable with the pixel count of today’s cameras, it may take a while for the upload to complete.

After you have clicked on the above “Add Photos”, click on the “Browse” tab and a “File Upload” window will open as shown below.

Select the photo(s) you wish to upload and then click on the “add” button.

You browser application should give some indication that it is busy uploading.

After the upload process is complete, your newly added photos will be visible in the album.

2018 Field Day Operator Schedules

Link

Here are links to spreadsheets or whom to contact to schedule operating time for the Field Day stations below.

For spreadsheets, enter your call sign (or name if unlicensed) on any unoccupied block of time. For the other stations, contact the band captain with times you are available.

The 40/15 SSB station (air-conditioned trailer) scheduler can be accessed via this link:

http://tinyurl.com/W4EZ-40-15-SSB

The Digital Stations (40/20 and maybe 15 meters) will also double as accessible stations for those who cannot negotiate stairs. One station (Access1) will be available for accessible SSB operation, and change to that mode as required, and back to digital when not.

https://tinyurl.com/W4EZ-Sched-Access-SSB-DIGI

For the 20 Meter SSB station (in a trailer) see this link:

https://tinyurl.com/20M-SSB-Operator-Schedule

To operate a CW station, coordinate with Bruce, N1LN.

For 80M SSB, contact Steve , W3AHL.

For VHF, contact Doug, W5ETS

For 10M SSB, Dave NA4VY

Dave, W4SAR

OCRA Membership Meeting, June 11, 2018

Introductions:

Treasure:

Financials remain very strong, and we are current on club insurance. Dues current is 73.

Field Day:  June 22-24

Food:

Friday night pot luck is being coordinated by John Boone (KM4MDR).  Setup is Friday, June 22.  Dinner will begin at 6:00 PM.  We would appreciate your letting us know in advance if you plan to attend so we can better plan for the number of guests.  Spouses are welcome.  If you have any questions, please email John at jsboone@msn.com.

If you plan to attend, please email John your call sign, name(s), number of folks attending, the dish you plan to bring, and special requirements, your phone # or email.  Please let us know if you can setup for dinner or clean up after dinner.

  • To date, 26 have purchased tickets at $5 dollars. Reimbursement will be available until June 18.  Please reference the Meal article below on this blog.
  • Still need cooks to help with preparation.
  • Emails from groups.io will keep everyone informed over the next 2 weeks.

Stations

We will be operating 9A again this year.  The list of stations are as follows:

CW – in MCU – Bruce (N1LN)

80 SSB – In RV – Steve (W3AHL)

40/15 SSB – In Trailer – Joe (K4SAR) and Adro (KV7D)

20 SSB – In Trailer Lad (W4ORD)

10 SSB – In Barn Dave (N4AVY)

40/15 Digital – In Garage Dave (W4SAR)

20 Digital – In Garage Sherri (WB4OSU)

VHF – In RV Doug (K5ETS)

Accessible stations will be located in the Garage.

Logging Software Overview

Bruce (N1LN) presented an N1MM overview.  The presentation is located on the Groups.io web sitehttps://groups.io/g/OCRA-DFMA/files#

Login credentials are required to access presentations.

A few key points include:

  • Band captains should ensure a PC is available for their station.
  • Will need to ensure that software is installed and working.
  • All stations must be same version (1.0.7193.0) to work properly.

Steve (W3AHL) provided an overview of the networking. Initial setup will be Friday afternoon.

Please refer to presentations on the groups.io website.  https://groups.io/g/OCRA-DFMA/files#

Login credentials are required to access presentations.

OCRA Board Meeting, May 28, 2018

++ Please Note: Field Day – Prepay Meal explained below. 

Attendees:

Dave (W4SAR), Karen (KD4YJZ), Dee (KU4GC), MK (W4MKR), Steve (W3AHL), Dan (KR4UB), Keith (W1KES), Wilson (W4BOH), Lad (W4ORD), and Bill (N8BR)

Field Day:  Prepay Meals

For this year’s 2018 Field Day, OCRA and DFMA are asking attendees to prepay ($5) for the Field Day June 23, Saturday 5 PM super and June 24 Sunday Breakfast (will refund if you must cancel, provided written cancellation is received before the food purchase date noted below.)  This is necessary to avoid the club losing significant money or, asking members who do show up to pay a higher amount to cover those who do not.

Prepayment authorizes the club to buy food on your behalf and can be by cash or check at the next meeting or mailed.  PayPal costs for many small payments is excessive and precludes use of that feature. Meal orders must be received by OCRA by June 18th.  Vegetarian meals are available. If you pay and later find you must cancel, send an email to treasurer@ncocra.org prior to the June 19th food order date, and your payment will be refunded or, you can use it as a tax deductible donations to the club, or extend your memberships, hihi.

The food purchase committee consisting of Lad, MK,and Dee will work with Jean (KR4UB ‘s XYL) to coordinate logistics.  We are seeking donations from Food Lion and possible Costco, but will reconsider whether donations are needed for next year.

DFMA Hamfest: 

The DFMA Hamfest was a good success.  OCRA club table netted $52.  The Volunteer Examiner (VE) session was successful with outcomes for 2 Extra, 4 General, and 3 Technician.

Repeater:

OCRA Board has decided to limit pursuing UNC campus for a repeater location. Instead, the priority will be to keep the 442.150 repeater active and on the air,  and ensure we have a trusted, hot-swappable repeater for backup.

We are actively seeking interested OCRA members to join the Repeater “team.”  This is a great opportunity for interested Hams to learn more about maintaining and supporting repeaters in the local area. If interested, please leave responsed to this post, or send an email to board@ncocra.org.

 

OCRA Board Meeting, April 30, 2018

Attendees:

Dave (W4SAR), Karen (KD4YJZ), Dee (KU4GC), MK (W4MKR), Steve (W3AHL), Dan (KR4UB), Keith (W1KES), Wilson (W4BOH), Lad (W4ORD)

Financials:

Balance statement is strong.  Current membership with dues current is 74.

Establish a Board email group – will use to share and approve meeting minutes

Dan (KR4UB) has created a new membership sign up form to assist in managing existing and new members.  We need to announce at next membership that OCRA stickers are available for $5.

Repeater:

Dan (KR4UB) will contact Alex at UNC to determine if they are able to provide any financial assistance.  The level of assistance will help determine our next steps.  There may be opportunities to locate and share the repeater with Chatham County CERT. We need to be diligent in discussions and move forward with a repeater decision in the coming months.

Public Service:

Steve (W3AHL) mentioned that public service activities are down this year.  However, John Stone mentioned that several new events have been added to the schedule. If interested in sharpening your ARES or CERT skills, these events are great learning opportunities.

Durham Fest:

There is work session Friday May 25 from 6:00-8:00 for setup.  Saturday morning, setup assistance will be needed starting around 7:00 AM.  The ham fest will start at 8:00 AM and end around 12:30 PM, with tear down starting shortly thereafter.  Tables are $12 and space available for $8.

Early registration tickets are available and will be registered for $50 drawing.  VE session will also be part of the HAM Fest.

Decision:

Board agrees to spend $24 for two tables.

Field Day:

Planning is ongoing. Antenna designs and locations will be finalized in the next month.

Lad will contact Kelly to determine available, costs, and logistics for providing diner around 5:00 PM on Saturday night.  This would reduce the dependency on band captains and other participants in managing meal logistics.

Sunday morning breakfast will still be provided by members.

Field Day info and timeline

Starting 2:00pm local time on Saturday, June 24
Ending 2:00pm local time in Sunday June 25

Location: Lamb Family property-
3117 MOOREFIELDS RD
HILLSBOROUGH, NC 27278

Callsign: W4EZ
At this time, we will be a 9A operation, meaning a club sponsor, 9 HF stations, using only battery power for transmitters, 5Watts maximum output.

Exchange for a complete contact is call sign, class of operation , and ARRL/RAC section.

For us our info is:
W4EZ 9A NC

Stations planned:
80/40/20/15 CW in the MCU, (three transmitters),
the CW gang

40M Digital in barn W4SAR
20M Digital, in barn, WB4OSU

80M Phone, in RV W3AHL
40/15M Phone, in camper KV7D/K4SAR
20M Phone , in camper W4ORD
10m Phone, in barn NA4VY

VHF- open
Satellite- W4FS

Logging: N1MM freeware logging program, a wireless network will merge all input into one master log

Some personnel:

Safety Officer- W4SAR
Public Information Table: W4MKR
Pot-luck coordinator: KM4MDR
Field Canteen Coordinator: W4ORD
Network: W3AHL
N1MM Logger consultant: N1LN
Overall Coordinator: W4SAR

Volunteers needed to provide relief operators, loggers, field canteen assistance, various other jobs throughout the 3 days of operation.

Recommended Timeline for Field Day Operation:
(All timepoints are local Daylight Saving Time)

Friday June 23

8:00am -Start of Set-Up.
By the FD rules, as of 8:00pm Thursday we could use a total of 24 hours in aggregate for station set up before the official start of FD on Saturday at 2:00pm. We will start with good daylight on Friday morning.
As much heavy work (tower lifting, antenna raising, ground rod driving, battery lifting, etc ) should be accomplished on Friday. Many volunteers will be needed so that this work can be done safely, and without overexerting anyone.

11:30am – Sandwiches and refreshments will be provided by Skip, WB4P

When time allows: preliminary testing of wireless network, power drops for auxiliary equipment

6:00pm Pot Luck Dinner, heavy work should cease.

9:00pm- copy ARRL FD bulletin from W1AW via PSK31
(100 bonus points)

Saturday June 24

As of sunrise: Complete station setups and final testing.

As early as possible, test all logging computers simultaneously on network. Final tests of stations.

2:00pm: START FD OPERATIONS

Circa 6:00pm- dinner provided at Field Canteen, $5 a head, volunteers are badly needed to assist W4ORD in set up and grilling of food

Sunday June 25
Circa 8:00am, Breakfast at Field Canteen, $5 a head, volunteers needed to assist.

2:00pm: FD OPERATIONS END

Many hands will be needed to safely tear down stations (there will be many tired people present), clean up.

Field Day Update May 10, 2017

Hi All-

We worked out some more logistics for Field Day. Bruce N1LN’s classes on the N1MM logging program are progressing nicely, with all of the band captains having been exposed to at least part of it. We should have everyone up to speed on using this one program this year. Testing will be done this week on Wilson’s property for the wireless network that will link all of the logging computers. If all goes well, all stations will be feeding their contacts into one master log, making it a snap for making our results submission. In the event of a network failure, or if someone’s logging computer just cannot access the network, we will go to the old tried and true method of backing up logs from the laptops onto a thumb drive, so that I can perform a merge afterward.

We have had to make some shifts to maintain a 9A Battery classification, but it also looks like we will am almost 100% Elecraft operation. Here is the current lineup:

CW:
3 transmitters on 80/40/20/15 meters, Elecraft K3 – in MCU

Digital:
40 Meter PSK31 Elecraft K3 – barn loft
20/15 Meter PSK31 Elecraft KX-3 – barn loft

Phone:
80 Meter SSB Elecraft K3- out of RV
40/15 Meter SSB Elecraft K3- out of camper
20 Meter SSB Phone Elecraft KX-3 – out of tent
10 Meter SSB Phone Radio Shack HTX-10 – out of barn loft

Skip, N4SKP will be providing a sandwich platter at Noon on that Friday for the work crews. John, KM4MDR will be coordinating the pot luck to be held that Friday night. Lad, W4ORD is working out the food supplies for the Saturday night dinner and the Sunday morning breakfast,, he will solicit side dishes or desserts that anyone may want to supply.

Also, both to garner the 100 point bonus for Social Media Publicity, and to provide yet another channel for members  and visitors to get updates on our Field Day operation, I have created a Facebook group:

OCRA-DFMA Amateur Radio Field Day W4EZ

Facebookers, feel free to join and help provide content, photographs from previous FD operations would be great to add!

 

 

 

Field Day Update April 2017

Hi All, more of the plans are starting to gel, we do need to solidify more of the logistics for Field Day. For one, I was mistaken when I said we were on track to be a 9A operation. As it turns out the CW operation out of the MCU will be running only three transmitters, not the four transmitters I had presumed, so we are an 8A operation as it now stands. Here are the current stations planned and band captains:

CW in the MCU: three transmitters on 80/40/20/15 meters. Bruce N1LN and the CW gang.

40 Digital- in barn loft, Dave W4SAR
20 Digital- in barn loft, John, KM4MDR

80 Phone- Steve , W3AHL in his RV
40/15 Phone- Adriano KV7D and Joe K4SAR in camper
20 Phone- Lad, W4ORD in tent.

Currently, there are no plans to work 10 meters due to very poor prospects for propagation. VHF is open if anyone wants to try it, that station will not change the count of stations for our category. I am working on a possible temporary split out of 15M phone so that we do keep a 9A designation, stand by for more on that later.

Bruce N1LN has agreed to run a teleconferenced class to get the band captains (and anyone interested in helping out with logging) up to speed on using the N1MM logging program. See the NCOCRA Yahoogroup for postings on this, I believe Bruce wants to start the initial session this coming Wednesday.

I will be contacting the band captains on their final arrangements for radios, to confirm what antennas they are using and where they will be placed, an updated site plan will be posted shortly after that is done.

Food- Lad W4ORD and Noble N4UOQ have agreed to step up and form the nucleus of the group operating the field canteen, they will be needing some more people to help with that work. Besides providing cold water and soft drinks throughout the operation, he canteen will also grill dinner on that Saturday and Breakfast on Sunday morning. John KM4MDR will coordinate the Pot Luck planned for that Friday night. Skip N4SKP will be providing a sandwich spread for the work crews on Friday around noon.

Bonus Points- We have several members volunteering to help chase down some of these points for us. Stand by, I will get all of you more solid information shortly.

Things are moving for Field Day, and the pace is picking up considerably the closer we get. I will be putting out notices on a more frequent basis now as we deal with the inevitable changes and tweaks that occur to every plan. I am looking forward to another great Field Day this year!

73,

Dave Snyder, W4SAR

N1MM+ Prep for Training

If you were at the last OCRA meeting you heard and hopefully participated in the discussion to standardize all Field Day stations on N1MM+ logging software. Not only will this make the post FD log integration process MUCH easier, it will allow all operators to easily move from station to station to help fill in some of the open times and it may allow for a technology jump to network all the stations together. This could promote both FUN to see how everyone else is doing real time and help with log accuracy. (more on this when the upcoming training occurs)

Before that training takes place, it would be very helpful for those of you not yet exposed to N1MM+ to spend some time looking over the following web links. I have found that when I attend training of any kind, going into that training class with some level of topic knowledge is VERY helpful. This helps you, the instructor and also other class members as the quality of the questions and discussion is much more ‘on topic’.

Whether you plan on being a Team Captain or not – please look over these links. If you have any questions, please send me an email. (bemeier@bellsouth.net)

1. Getting Started with N1MM+ (Documents / Getting Started)

http://n1mmplus.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php

2. Then move to N1MM Logger PLUS – FULL INSTALL

http://n1mmplus.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php?page=Full+Install

3. Finally – here is a You Tube video showing some very useful configuration information and process

Happy Reading !!!

73,
Bruce – N1LN

Preliminary Plans for Field Day 2017

 

We are a little under 4 months from Field Day 2017, so we need to start our initial planning.

Of course, some things will be the same, OCRA and the DFMA will run a joint operation. The Lamb Family once again will be hosting the location, we will again run an “Alpha Battery” club operation. That means transmitted output will be no greater than 5 Watts, all transceivers will be on on battery power. How many stations we run will need to be determined, returning band captains get the “right of first refusal”, and then we can fill slots for non-returnees as well as welcome some trying something new. We do get 100 bonus points for each HF station on emergency power.

Now for some of the changes:

Food-     Fear not, we will still be eating well! However, after many years of hard work and excellent service, Dee KU4GC and M.K. W4MKR are bowing out of running our field canteen. They are willing to give advice but no longer wish to do the heavy lifting. I believe a committee needs to be formed right away to carry on the planning and staffing of our field canteen. This will be to provide two meals during Field Day operations, a Saturday dinner and a Sunday Breakfast, as well as have water , soft drinks and snacks available throughout the weekend. John KM4MDR has volunteered to coordinate the huge potluck which is held on that Friday night, which is one of the two largest social events we hold each year (the Holiday Dinner being the other). If you have an interest in working on the committee, let us know!

Logging-     The other change will be in how we will be logging results. In the past , we had used several different logging programs with a ADIF output capability. The output was never completely compatible, so not all of the logs would integrate into the master log. This meant many hours of editing and formatting had to be done by me to pull a master log together. The CW operators have been using the N1MM freeware logger, which allows multiple computers to simultaneously make log entries via a wireless connection. I asked if this capability could be extended across the whole Field Day site, and it can be done.  If the entire Field Day operation enters into one master log, my work in preparing our FD submission will be much easier. You would also be able to watch the results for the entire operation in real time. This means that all logging computers must have wireless capability. Also, all of us will have to learn how to use the N1MM software. Bruce, N1LN has agreed to give a tutorial at an upcoming meeting, I am looking forward to that.

Bonus Points-     One reason our closest competitor in California keeps beating us, is that they strongly pursue all the bonus points they can get. Some members in the past have taken on various bonus activities. I strongly recommend that we put together a bonus point committee to help coordinate these activities, and explore ways to get even more points added without overburdening anyone.

As always, I eagerly anticipate our operation.  We have a corps of dedicated, technically gifted amateurs, who enjoy each other’s company, I can’t wait to see what we come up with this year!

73–  Dave W4SAR